Sylvana raised her glass, right handed and showing her bruised knuckles, to Face in a toast. "May your actions prove your honour," she said with a grin, from habit, before taking a sip of the Halmad's Prime within.
Face stopped, his glass half raised, and stared at her. More and more, his private suspicions were being confirmed. Each moment he spent with her revealed a little something more to him than she would likely have even known. Sure, he had suppositions from her name, but that could be a coincidence. But, the way she moved. The unspoken sign of conversation running beneath the spoken. Her knowing a traditional Lorrdian toast, for that matter, could not be.
"Where did you get that from?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral and not letting his surprise show. Improvisation had always been strong for him.
She grinned, "My Da - he said it's pretty common where he comes from." She shrugged and switched the glass to her injured left hand so she could drink slightly more comfourtably.
She felt like she'd known him forever, but that was likely attributable to the fact that Faace and Phaanan had kept her company through a bout with insomnia. She didn't have the heart to wake Alison, so she had gone to the common room to find a book of some sort to read. Faace and Phaanan were there, and wouldn't hear of her reading if they could keep her busy. Something about the books not being worth her time.
They tought her how to play sabacc that night... for Neccos... they wouldn't play with her again.
"And where's that, Sylvana?" he asked in such a way as to set her immediately at ease.
She started from her reverie, then smiled. "Don't know," she shrugged and chuckled. "He never said."
"Oh," Face nodded slowly.
"Why do you ask?" she laughed again as she tilted her head, raising an eyebrow.
"No reason, it's just a rather unique toast."
"Oh, okay," she said brightly, taking another sip of the drink before her. She winced slightly as she put the glass back down.
"What happened to you, anyway?" Face asked by way of conversation.
"We couldn't sleep last night, so we decided to go for a walk. To make a long story short, we got lost, then separated. This gang tried to... hurt me - but before they could do too much, this guy jumped out of the shadows and attacked them. Arrek soon heard and came as well, and we fought the gang to ground." She thought a moment, tilting her head to the side in a characteristic way she'd had since she was small. "No idea who he was, though. He just asked my forgiveness for not getting there soon enough, and left."
Face raised his eyebrows. He'd wondered where his friend had disappeared off to a while ago. It looked like now he knew. Sounds like him, he signed in the Lorrdian way, off handedly.
Without thinking, Sylvana responded in kind. You know him? Who is he?
Face peered at her a bit more closely. Just someone who says he likes rescuing gorgeous damsels in distress.
Sylvana raised an eyebrow as she suddenly realised their mode of kinetic speech, then nodded, taking another sip of the 'Prime. "Anyway, we got this ride from a Duros, for a story, got semi-scolded by Sci, then tried to find our way to the medbay." She laughed again, "Take a wild guess what happened."
"You got lost?"
She nodded, "We got lost. We were hurt badly too, and finally kind of gave up on looking. Wes and some others came, then, and took us to the medbay."
"Good thing."
She nodded, "Yeah."
They were silent a moment, and Face opened conversation again. "So, I hear you're Hobbie's new girlfriend."
She chuckled and shook her head as she drank. "I doubt it. We're just good friends."
"Right... I've heard that before...." His voice trailed off a moment as he thought, "I've said that before."
"Well, I don't care what you heard, or said," she grinned, blushing slightly. "We've only gone out once, it's nothing as serious as my being his girlfriend." Though I'd like it to be, she finished to herself in thought.
"Say what you will...."
She finished her drink and poured herself another as he asked her what she thought of Coruscant. She was honest, and told him that it seemed so dead to her, and that it needed some trees.
"There are some trees in a few rooftop parks and gardens."
"So I hear," she replied. "Hobbie said he'd take me to one tonite."
"So it's another date," he winked.
Sylvana just looked at him. "Believe what you want to, Face."
"Oh, I will," he replied with a chuckle.
She looked down at her drink and swirled its contents as she contemplated them. "Sounds like something Alisky would say," she said quietly before downing the contents quickly.
"Did you ever learn whom you were hired to replace?" he asked quietly, seemingly changing the subject as he filled her glass again from the bottle of Halmad's Prime.
She shook her head with a puzzled smile. "No. I asked the Major once, but he said it was classified, or something."
"Well, it's not classified to you, Sylvana, being a member of Terra group." He sighed resignedly, "I've learned Sci does strange things like that sometimes, when he doesn't feel like answering a particular question."
"Do you know who it was?" Her eyes sparkled with eagerness, her thirst for knowledge ever unquenchable.
"I really thought you knew. I was under the impression that you had been given a choice of placing, and..." he sighed. "She was a close friend of mine, mutual to you, I know, since she'd spoken of you on occasion."
Sylvana pursed her lips as she read the undertone in his voice. "The Eleven before me didn't simply quit, did she?"
He shook his head, "No, she didn't."
Unbid came the sudden vision of her asking Hobbie how her friend had died, and him averting his eyes while telling her it was classified, shot through her mind. Closely followed flashes from the nightmares that had been plaguing her since long before. Her eyes widened.
"Alison Sky," he confirmed quietly.
"No..." Sylvana whispered before looking at him with burning grey- ringed eyes. "No! You're lying!" she shouted as she slammed a fist on the table. Heads turned as a glass fell to the floor and shattered. She shook as tears fell from her eyes, and just as suddenly ceased as though her ability to cry had been abruptly cut off.
Dour Watcher balled his hands into fists and gritted his teeth as he growled low. It took nearly all the self control he could muster to not go over there right then, laying Face out for causing the girl such mental anguish.
"Sylvana, calm down," Face spoke reasonably as a server droid cleaned up the broken glass and set another on the table, filling it with 'Prime. "Try to act reasonably."
"Act reasonably... REASONABLY?! You're telling me that I've been set as a replacement for my best friend, and you're telling me to ACT REASONABLY?!!" She stood, still shaking, glaring as her hands balled into fists atop the table.
"Let your actions prove your honour, Sylvana," Face quoted as he spoke in soft, calming tones. "Don't dishonour Alison like this. She went the way she wanted to, protecting others." He leaned forward, looking her in the eye. "She worked hard to give honour to the number Eleven, don't cheapen that."
Sylvana's eyes lost their fire, and slowly she uncurled her fists as she sank back into her chair. "I will never dishonour her memory," she vowed darkly, her expression on the verge of emotionlessness. She tossed down her entire glass of 'Prime, and set it down on the table with force. "Never," she whispered hoarsely.
He let silence reign as he refilled both her glass and his own. He knew what it was like to lose a close friend, and he knew the need to forget was sometimes exceeding strong.
Both sat lost in their individual thoughts for a while, before Face spoke again. "That toast, the one you said your father had taught you. What's his name?"
"Whyfer?" Sylvana asked sullenly as she took another sip of the 'prime.
"Curiosity's sake," he shrugged.
"Erich."
"Interesting name. I once had an uncle by that name."
"Hn."
"He and his family disappeared about twenty years ago."
"Sorry," she finished the drink and poured herself another automatically.
"It's alright, I was only really just starting to get to know them. They went on a vacation, or something," he said before taking a draw of his own drink, watching her intently. "They were never heard from again." Strange, everything he'd heard about her pointed to her being the maniacally cheerful sort... odd that she was becoming so quiet.
"I'm still sorry. It's hard to lose someone." Sylvana nodded simply, then shook her head slightly while blinking, then widening her eyes. "Okay... I've had enough," she said slowly. "Where're you from?"
"Lorrd," he responded, still looking at her intently.
She half smirked, "Like my last name. Funny, eh?"
He chuckled low, a brightness dawning behind his eyes. "I guess it is. Sylvana, has the thought ever come to you that, well.... Perhaps, not only are--"
"Agent Lorrdain, Captain Loran. I've been looking everywhere for you," Sci said as he seemingly materialised from thin air, laying a hand on his subordinate's shoulder, effectively interrupting whatever it was Face was about to say.
Sylvana turned her head to look up at him slowly, and put a hand to her temple in a sloppy, yet somber, salute. "Well met, Chief Rumpellittle... Rumplebor... Rummystilts... Zed."
"You're drunk," he observed with mild surprise.
"Nah, just a wee bit tipsy," she smiled, holding up her finger and thumb as a measure while she smirked, mentally straightening her 'happy mask'.
"Sit tight a minute. Captain, a moment of your time?" Sci asked, motioning him away for a private conversation.
Face looked as though he wanted to finish what he was saying, then decided to let it wait. He wasn't very happy with Sci at the moment, but he could see that Sylvana was mourning, and didn't want to exacerbate her dark mood. "I'll be back shortly, Vanni," He said quietly before rising to go speak with the young Major.
Sylvana blinked, that nickname seemed so very familiar, but she couldn't quite figure out why. She was pretty sure she hadn't told him to call her that. Deciding to let it rest, she waved a hand, half-listening, and looked at her half-finished drink as they left. She yawned, and tossed the rest down. "Not right letting it go waste," she said quietly to herself.
Except for the short episode of unconsciousness, she hadn't slept since the previous day. The Halmad's Prime wasn't facilitating her wakefulness any, either. She pushed the glass away and folded her arms on the tabletop. Resting her head on them, she soon fell deeply into sleep.
From a few tables away, troubled eyes watched from beneath a fringe of green hair. Loran and Sylvana spoke quietly, now, but by virtue of the new reciever he'd secured to her jacket, which rested on the chair back behind her, he had been able to hear each and every word. A hand rose to smoothe down the false mustache and goatee, a habit he'd picked up to be sure they were still attatched properly. His mouth bore a contemplative frown.
He watched Loran leave to speak with the Major, Scifantasy, who had interrupted them; then turned his gaze to watch as Sylvana lay her head down, a fringe of blue and black falling softly to conceal her eyes.
He dropped his hand and pulled the necklace from beneath his shirt. The light winked off the pendant back at him tauntingly as a thought began to form in the back of his mind.
Could it be true...?